


Realizations

by MsMachine



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eve rescues Villanelle, F/F, set after s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMachine/pseuds/MsMachine
Summary: "Villanelle frowned. Eve’s laugh should be a good sign, like an approval. Then why did it feel wrong? Why were tears rolling down her face? Eve’s eyes were watering. She was not sure.(...)“Whatever you mean? You’ve left, Eve. At the bridge, remember? You’ve left. I don’t know what you’re saying.”Killing Eve Week - Eve Rescues Villanelle
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 11
Kudos: 70
Collections: Killing Eve Week 2020





	Realizations

The loud buzzing of the cell phone woke her up. Almost three in the morning of a Saturday.

Turning her head to the other side of the bed, she tried to ignore the vibration. It just would not stop. She was angry. This was the first time she was able to sleep at a normal time since she arrived. 

“This better be important.” Eve muttered while trying to get into a seating position and pushing strands of hair out of her face.

Unknown number. Three lost calls.

She frowned, but then it rang again.

She swapped the green icon and the only sound, she took a moment to recognize, short-timed breaths… one long breath… and then a squeal which made her arm hair get up. Her whole self froze when the voice slowly spoke: “E…ve…”

She gulped, already on her feet. “Villanelle? Are you okay? Oh, God, where are you?”

Her beating heart did not help while the other side has not replied to her inquiries. “Villanelle?”

“…Eve, I-“

“Where are you? I’m on my way!”

Eve was almost falling down the stairs trying to find the other side of her shoes. Fuck the shoes, where were her car keys?

“Ev… Listen… Don’t-“

“Don’t do anything more stupid before I get to you. Can you tell me where you are?”

Her keys were nowhere in sign. Dinner table, clear, just like the sofa. She ran back to her bedroom listening to the cut-words Villanelle was saying, which word made herself almost unable to process her own thoughts.

“Talk to me, Villanelle. I’m almost there, please, talk to me.”

The seat belt completely forgot, whilst Eve drove through the dark streets of London at full speed. Villanelle’s choking breathing was incentive enough for her to press further the accelerator pedal. 

“I’m almost there, I can see the building!”

She lied. She was a terrible liar, Villanelle knew it right away.

“Eve…listen, I-I want to say…someth-“

“You can tell me when I get to you.”

“No, look-“

“Don’t you dare, Oksana. Don’t you dare do that to me!”

The silence that followed by her exclamation was excruciating. She did not dare to stop her watering eyes. She was not going to go through this. Not again.

Five years ago, Eve was just another ordinary government worker. Until that fateful day and her open mouth lead her to this exact moment. Five years of betrayals, pain, anger, and… death. Countless death.

Eve had spent a very long time blaming the breathless woman across the phone for all the dramatic changes in her life. It took her everything to realize she only did what she desired. Eve desired chaos, and so chaos had desired her back.

It might have cost five years of her life and blood on her hands to realize her deepest desires, but she was not going to let it all fade away through a phone call.

She deserved better than that. They both did.

After the last look she gave Villanelle at the bridge, Eve swallowed her cowardly tears and went away. She told herself that that life was not hers anymore. The only respectable action to take was to leave.

And she did. She went back to the States, but it just was not the same.

Eve was not the same for a long time, it took her five years to realize that.

The first letter she received exactly one year after the last time she had crossed eyes with Villanelle. 

She did not open it for three months.

An ocean between them and cowardice still took the better of her.

Finishing a bottle of sake by herself and with stinging eyes, she opened the letter and read the cursive words, getting even more drunk in every letter… her break wall was the last words. “Still(?) yours… Villanelle.”

She cried, not proud of it. She cried for everything that had happened and everything she had not allowed to happen. The ugly sobs that came out of her mouth were incomprehensible. That was not her! Who was Eve, after all?

Who was Eve, after all, the real Eve?

Was she the one Villanelle described? A part of a killer? Was she that detached? Has she ever been like that and all it took was a blonde Russian to throw it into her face?

Could it have been that the only honest person in her whole life be the very same assassin she promised to arrest?

Five years ago; and only now Eve opened her eyes.

How could she sit and point a finger towards Villanelle when she was the mirror to herself. Forty-five years of age and all it took to break her glasshouse was an obnoxious woman, who could read her better than she could ever have done.

The tears stopped when she realized that it did not matter where she went, she has never closed that chapter of her life.

So she wrote back.

It started with single phrases. That turned into paragraphs, and then photographs and postcards.

She received a small box once. She had sent it back.

“One step at a time, please.” Villanelle had accepted it, but her next gift she could not refund.

It was a plane ticket. To London, nonetheless.

“Please, don’t feel pressured. Tell me if you’d come.” Eve read it again, and took a deep breath.

What did she have to lose? 

Glancing around her cramped apartment, she sniffed.

She wrote back right away.

Being back to London after all that time was different. She was a different person since she left. Her old house had yet to be sold. People were not into buying houses where the previous owner had been killed inside it, apparently. 

She made her way through the tall grass and unlocked the front door.

It was weird being back here. In her own front door.

If she paid a tiny more attention, she would be able to smell the blood. All that blood that came from Niko in the living room.

She ignored her memories and went directly to the bathroom. Wrong room. The bathtub was the same. 

Closing the door behind her, she took a breath, trying to root herself, in what once a stable home. She used to call it her home. But not anymore.

Villanelle spoke again. Or rather mumbled something, but Eve was already running towards the glass building; she did not notice the dying battery until trying to get the exact location where Villanelle was.

“Shit!”, there were a few lights on which guided her to the elevator, where she noticed the bloodstains. It did not seem fresh, which made her breath uneasy. Entering the elevator there was only one bloody fingerprint to notice, the 14th floor.

Eve’s fingers tightened around her cellphone. Her eyes glued to the red screen, as if that would make her go any faster.

Her lips were speaking silent words; random, comfort words, just words… this would be the first time in three years Eve would see Villanelle again.

This was not how they planned it.

But then again, nothing about them was planned.

The elevator chimed to the 14th floor, and Eve ran. The freezing wind hit her hard on the face; some windows were broken, just like basically everything on that floor. It seemed like what was once a luxurious flat, was now torn to pieces.

Eve screamed Villanelle’s name, she did not hear a thing.

“Villanelle? I’m here, it’s Eve. Villa-“ and there she was.

Just like a raggedy doll, lying on the marble white floor, where a pool of red was forming under her.

This was torturous. This just was not right. 

She swallowed down her cries and kneeled over the blonde woman. “Hey, it’s me, wake up.” She cried out. “Villanelle, let’s get you to the hospital.”

Villanelle’s eyelids moved, and she blinked. The most gorgeous pair of eyes glazing at her. Those soft and worrying eyes staring back at her after so long, made her smile, or what she felt like a smile seemed more like a convulsion, blood falling down her lips and a strong cough broke the eye contact.

She could die right there, and it would be just fine. She had Eve with her, everything was fine.

But Eve did not seem to agree with her mumbled-coughed out words.

Everything hurts, her head was heavy, she could not even be able to maintain it straight; she was not sure how or either how long it took Eve to get her out of the flat, she lost consciousness the moment she was on her feet. Sort of on her feet, since Eve was carrying all her weight.

She barely opened her lips and then she was embraced by darkness. And it was peaceful. It was painless. It was refreshing.

And also… empty.

And cold… so very cold… so desolate.

Being engulfed for that emptiness was painful, and she could feel the fear set in, but there was nothing substantial to set in. 

It was just her being afraid of the dark. Again.

Yet, this is not a story about existentialism. 

This is a story about realizations. About learning the consequences of actions.

This was the place Eve came to terms with herself. With her feelings… with Villanelle.

Surrounded by light green walls in the dead hours of the day. 

As much as overwhelming it all was, it was also comforting.

Being able to see her; even in this condition. This was the woman that changed it all. And this was her, accepting it.

She was only human, after all. Whatever that meant.

Eve cracked her neck, massaging a hand in it, trying to relieve some knots. She did not notice hazel eyes glaring at her. It would last a few seconds until she would feel it. 

She stopped in motion, not quite sure how to handle it.

Villanelle was awake.

She took the oxygen mask off and took a long sigh. Never leaving Eve out of her sight.

“This tension is almost suffocating as these ugly hospital clothes.” Villanelle scoffed, of course, she would. 

“Better than the ones you were wearing.”

“Eve, those were Burberry’s, have some respect, please.”

She could not hold it, she smiled, even though she did exactly what Villanelle wanted, she gave in.

And they were smiling at each other, as if that was a common activity they would share on a daily basis. It seemed so simple. But reality hit her as fast as it had started.

That angry scratch on Villanelle’s cheek was grounded enough.

“What happened? How… I mean, what-”

“How was your flight?”

“Don’t.”

“Why? I wanna know, since you refused that first-class passage.”

Eve sighed, she knew how this worked, and she had all the cards this time.

“I traveled fine, thanks for asking. Now, you tell me what happened, otherwise I’m not answering any other questions.”

Villanelle widened her eyes as if surrendering.

“Ok, then.” She adjusted herself on the thin hospital bed and winced. “I’m fine.” She could see Eve trying to help her, but she did not think she would be able to handle Eve’s touch. Not right now, at least.

She looked back as Eve found her way back to the armchair and licked her lower lip.

“That flat was completely destroyed, Villanelle.”

She nodded, not sure where to start.

“What were you doing there?”

“Honestly… not much.”

“What?”

“… When I got there it was already messy, that blood wasn’t all mine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have to promise no to yell when I tell you.”

“Why?“

“Just do as I say”, Villanelle was dying for having to beg. “Please.”

Eve nodded and sealed her lips. She could only imagine what happened, she just could not believe Villanelle had gone back into killing. She was almost speechless by that possibility. But then again, they have not really been honest through those letters.

“I’ve done it, Eve. I killed them all.” 

Villanelle looked almost proud if it were not by that long scratch on her face and the obvious bandage around her torso.

“What are you talking about?” She knew exactly what she meant.

“The Twelve. They’re gone. All of them. It’s over, Eve.”

“What-“

“I know you love details, Eve. I can tell you all later, I just wanted you to know from me… you are free.”

Eve laughed. She could not believe the audacity of this woman. Free! How could she ever be free?

Villanelle frowned. Eve’s laugh should be a good sign, like an approval. Then why did it feel wrong? Why were tears rolling down her face? Eve’s eyes were watering. She was not sure.

“How, Villanelle, how could I ever be free if you are the one holding the keys?”

Villanelle frown deepened in confusion.

“Whatever you mean? You’ve left, Eve. At the bridge, remember? You’ve left. I don’t know what you're saying.”

“This is not how I imagined this happening, oh, God.”

Eve was now pacing beside the hospital bed, with a hand on her forehead.

Then she stopped and took a breath, then gazed at Villanelle. She got closer.

And time ceased. For that thousand seconds that night, time sat still when they locked eyes on one another.

And it was peaceful, and it was confusing, it was chaos. It was them.

Just the both of them.

Alone and together at the same time, realizing it.

Breathing it.

“We should talk.”

Villanelle nodded.

“I think we should.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of sleep deprivation, hope you enjoyed; All grammar mistakes are mine, english is not my first language, but I'm finding my way through. ;) Thank you.
> 
> Also I'm terrible writing summaries, lol.


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